


Confidence

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [86]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-06 14:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18852640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: Jared has about ten seconds to adjust to Edmonton before he’s thrown into the fray.





	Confidence

Jared has about ten seconds to adjust to Edmonton before he’s thrown into the fray. Maybe ten minutes. He’s just finished unpacking when he finds out he’s been assigned to room with a new guy, and not just any new guy: he’s sharing a room with Julius Halla, the Oilers most recent first rounder, who is devastatingly good at hockey. Devastatingly. It’s something Jared noticed at prospect camp, but it’s even more obvious as soon as they start training camp that the Oilers got something special with him. He’s even skinnier than Jared though — look, Jared knows he’s not actually skinny, especially compared to this time last year, but he still is compared to this group — which is kind of nice. The String Bean Room.

He’s also quiet, and part of that seems to be the language barrier — he’s definitely not fluent in English, but Jared, whose French is maybe good enough to order food in Quebec City, tops, can’t judge — but part of it just seems like his personality, and that works for Jared. Quiet String Bean Room. 

Serious String Bean Room, because Jared’s seen Julius crack a smile once or twice, but never off the ice. Even so, he’s quickly adopted by the vets, who have clearly realised that he’s going to make the final roster, and he’s already been renamed ‘Holla’, obnoxious intonation included, and alternately Orange, which had him looking desperately confused until Jared googled Orange Julius and shoved his phone under his nose. Jared is maybe faintly jealous he’s earned not one, but two nicknames in the space of days, but then Ben Morris starts calling him J Math and he changes his mind. Jared or Matheson is just fine by him.

Training camp still isn’t easy, and Jared thinks that’s true for pretty much anyone — except maybe the stupid perfect Bryce Marcuses of the world — but it’s not as overwhelming as it was his first year, mentally or physically. He feels great, honestly, during the day, feels like everything’s clicking, and it’s only when the day’s done and they’re back in the hotel that the exhaustion hits. It’s cheering when Julius, devastating at hockey or not, nearly falls asleep in his dinner, day three, and only Jared nudging his elbow is enough to save him, which gets him a thankful smile in return, the first non-hockey smile Jared’s seen. 

They’re both dead to the world maybe a half hour after dinner’s done, and when Jared gets up the next morning, he can hear Julius groaning in the shower through the door. “Feel you,” Jared mumbles, and when it’s his turn to shower he turns it up as hot as he can take it and suffers the heat working through all the knots in his back that seem to have spontaneously appeared in his sleep. He somehow comes out of it feeling both better and worse. 

At the end of training camp, Jared’s still up, which he isn’t exactly surprised by, but is relieved about. It would have been completely mortifying to somehow backslide from last year when he thinks he did better, but Donahue was fired over the summer, replaced by Reggie Deslauriers, who’d been fired by the Nordiques right around the same time. It’s a trade up for the Oilers — you get fired from the Nordiques because a consistently good team didn’t do better than good that year. Donahue was fired for a consistently terrible team doing even worse than usual. Jared has never referred to Deslauriers as GM Dumbfuck in his head, which is a good start for a new GM.

Still, it’s left him a little uneasy, not sure if something Donahue liked in him was something Deslauriers wouldn’t care for, might not want on the roster. Jared’s noticed even the vets looking kind of worried, like maybe they’re not the direction he wants to go in. It wouldn’t surprise Jared: with the exception of Brouwer and maybe Jacobi, who’s small but mean, they’re not a team you associate with toughness, and in a conference that’s all about that, they get pushed around a lot. Jared probably wouldn’t help with that. Julius definitely won’t help with that. 

Still, at the end of camp, there they both are, and Jared witnesses the second off-ice Halla smile; well, it probably doesn’t count, because it’s hockey related, but Jared still grins right back at him after Mulligan tells them to get the hell out of there on the last day, before, looking even more grumpy than his usual, asks to talk to some other guys, a fun code for ‘hey, sorry, you’re out of here’.

As usual, they play the Flames twice in exhibition games, start the preseason by heading right back home — well, Jared’s home — and as usual, Bryce isn’t in the Flames line-up when Jared heads into Calgary. 

They’re staying overnight, thankfully, because they’ve got to fly to Vancouver next, and Jared gets special dispensation considering the whole ‘my parents live here, promise to be back at the hotel by bus call’. And then hell, you know, go sleep with the enemy instead. What the Oilers don’t know won’t hurt them; Jared is trying very hard not to think about the fact that when he gets hitched the Oilers will probably have to be told.

Jared has time to grab lunch with his family before the game — him and Bryce agreed they wouldn’t see each other until after, just because they probably won’t be able to keep their hands off one another — has a quick chat with Chaz before he has to get dressed for warm-ups, getting a few suspicious looks from passing Flames due to his Oilers shirt.

“Good thing BJ’s not playing tonight,” Chaz says. 

“Why, so the Oilers have a chance?” Jared asks.

“Nah, you still don’t,” Chaz says, laughing when Jared gives him the finger. “I’m just imagining his face right now if one of our guys pushed you around. Headline: Bryce Marcus beats up fellow Flame in parking garage after game.”

Jared snorts.

“Or, fuck, even worse: Bryce Marcus suspended for jumping the bench to punch his own teammate in the face.”

“Oh, you think it’s funny,” Chaz says, when Jared laughs. “Just wait.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jared says, then pulls him into a loose hug, getting some serious side-eye from Jacobi when he comes out of what’s ostensibly the Flames side of no man’s land.

“Buddy of yours?” Jacobi asks.

“He was my captain on the Hitmen,” Jared says, which lessens the side-eye a bit. He’s now imagining blandly saying ‘we’re engaged to be married’ if he got side-eyed for hugging Bryce before a game. Jacobi would probably laugh.

“Not your buddy on the ice,” Jacobi says, like he’s imparting some great wisdom.

“Well, duh,” Jared says.

Jared checks his phone before warm-ups to find a good luck text from Bryce and a picture from his mom of Erin in her Oilers jersey again. Jared hates her. He hopes the Flames fans around her are incredibly rude to her.

Actually no, he’d have to kill them if dad didn’t do it first, so maybe not.

He tucks his phone away, notices Julius, who’s honestly so chill he’s almost comatose most of the time, bouncing his knee like crazy across the room. Rogers goes over to talk to him before Jared can, but it doesn’t seem to help, and after warm-ups he’s still doing it. After the pre-game speech, all ‘just because this doesn’t affect the standings doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter’ cliches, Jared goes over to his stall. 

“What,” Julius says, eyes fixed on his overactive knee.

“You’re better at hockey than anyone else in this room,” Jared says, low enough that hopefully no one else hears him, because that’s probably bad form, even if it’s true, and wanders back to his spot, neck hot, like he’s being looked at.

It takes Julius seven minutes to score his first goal. Seven. Twenty-nine to net a second. Jared isn’t jealous. Well, Jared isn’t just jealous. He got a point out of the second, and the knee-bouncing, which was very distracting, is no longer an issue.

They win it by two, which Jared would feel better about if Calgary hadn’t been playing their back-up back-up goalie and letting their entire first line sit it out, but it still feels pretty fucking awesome when the horn goes in a very quiet Saddledome. He meets his family after, dad all effusive about his play, Erin smugly still wearing that damn jersey, and one Bryce Marcus suddenly appearing after a couple minutes, like he was told where to find them.

“I sat with them,” Bryce says when Jared squints at him after the hobgoblins head out. “Your mom offered me a ticket when she found out I wasn’t playing tonight.”

No one told Jared about this. He honestly feels betrayed.

“Dad on good behaviour?” Jared asks.

Bryce shrugs, which probably means no. “Want me to give you a ride home?” he asks, mouth curling up, and Jared rolls his eyes but follows him to the parking lot. 

The ride home is basically foreplay — Jared has an almost Pavlovian reaction to Bryce driving by now — and maybe ten minutes after they get in the door, tops, Jared is naked and breathless and kind of messy, Bryce the same, until he distributes Kleenex from his bedside table.

“Good to be home?” Bryce asks, and Jared laughs, rolling over to press a kiss to Bryce’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” he says. “Pretty good.”

“I ordered food if you’re hungry,” Bryce says, hand coming up to run through Jared’s hair.

Jared is, but. “Not yet,” he says.

“Oilers looked decent out there tonight,” Bryce says.

Jared shrugs. “We were alright. You just had Cross in.”

“He wasn’t playing bad,” Bryce says. “Three of those goals beat him clean, it’s just the last one he should have had.”

Jared’s dad said the same thing. Jared’s imagining him and Bryce discussing it during the game, and it makes him smile.

“Halla’s your roommate, isn’t he?” Bryce asks. “That kid’s gonna be something. He was on _fire_ tonight.”

Halla isn’t even a year younger than Jared, so it’s kind of funny to hear Bryce refer to him as a kid, considering.

“I mean, yeah, he scored half our goals,” Jared says.

“He could have scored none and I’d be saying that,” Bryce says. “He embarrassed the shit out of our D. You see that deke of his before the first goal? Fucking filthy.”

Jared wrinkles his nose. “I don’t think I’m comfortable with you talking about my roommate like that,” he says. 

“Are you jealous that I like Halla’s hockey?” Bryce says, grinning at him, amused, which is annoying. 

“No,” Jared says. “Whatever, it’s not like you’re wrong, he’s already better than like, my entire team, so.”

“He’s definitely something,” Bryce says, all like — dreamy about it.

“No crushing on my teammates,” Jared says, frowning.

“Pfft,” Bryce says. “He’s a little kid.”

“He’s almost nineteen, you know,” Jared says. “You dated a _seventeen_ year old.”

“Yeah, but you were like, the oldest seventeen year old alive,” Bryce says.

“Thanks?” Jared says.

“It’s a compliment,” Bryce assures him. “You get to see Big Z?”

Bryce needs to stop encouraging Chaz’s stupid self-nickname. It’s terrible. His name doesn’t even start with a Z. 

“Yeah. Said he was glad you weren’t playing,” Jared says, then realising how that sounds, “He was worried that if one of your guys boarded me you’d jump off the bench to beat them up.”

Jared expects Bryce to laugh, but he doesn’t.

“No one’s going to board you,” Bryce says, darkly enough that it’s more ‘or else’ rather than ‘I hope’.

Well, that isn’t making the first time Jared plays Bryce terrifying in new and exciting ways.

“No getting headlines for beating on your own teammates,” Jared says firmly. “Even if they board me.”

Bryce has a very stubborn face, and it says ‘no promises’.

“I’ve got Brouwer to fight for my virtue or whatever,” Jared says. “Pretty sure he can smack ‘em down better than you.”

“Hey,” Bryce says. “I’m good in a fight.”

“Not enforcer good,” Jared says. “Which is good, because like, I like your face, so.”

“I like your face too,” Bryce says, then, “Speaking of liking faces, you up for round two?”

That was an absolutely terrible, nonsensical segue, but Jared is like — he’s not saying no or anything. They’ve got time to make up for.

Round two is a little more leisurely than round one. They raid the fridge after, Jared demolishing three quarters of the food Bryce ordered and taking a shower — it is so, so nice to actually shower in his own shower — before the weeks of training and the game and the food hit him all at once. Probably for the best, since he’s got to be up in — shit. Not that many hours.

“Sorry, I’m setting my alarm obnoxiously early,” Jared says after they’ve crawled into bed.

“No worries,” Bryce says, eyes already shut, like Jared’s exhaustion’s contagious. “I’ll drive you to the hotel in the morning.”

“I can walk it,” Jared says.

“Then I’ll walk you,” Bryce says, and without opening his eyes, like he can see Jared’s sceptical face, “I’ll turn around when we’re like a block away, no worries.”

“Okay,” Jared says, because it’s not like he doesn’t want to spend as much time with him as possible, and even if it’s not in private, if they can’t be like they want to be, it’s still better than being hundreds of kilometres away.

“You looked good out there tonight,” Bryce says. “I forgot to tell you that.”

“Not as good as Halla,” Jared retorts.

“You looked confident,” Bryce says. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Jared asks.

“You didn’t last year,” Bryce says, not like an insult, just a statement of fact.

That’s probably true. He doesn’t know if he’d describe himself as confident right now, but in comparison to last year — well.

“You looked really good out there tonight, J,” Bryce says, and Bryce knows what he’s talking about when it comes to hockey, so Jared decides to believe him.


End file.
